


you hold the power as long as you're driven

by bitchbabymurdock



Series: boy in the bubble [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, literally my first fic without any swear words mom are you proud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 16:47:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20855033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitchbabymurdock/pseuds/bitchbabymurdock
Summary: For the first time since his father's death, Matt finally goes to Fogwell's.





	you hold the power as long as you're driven

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'fight back' by neffex
> 
> i am . Exhausted so if this seems kinda weird thats my why jsghsdfs
> 
> this takes place before ['the road is long, we carry on'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20274943) so you don't really need to read that or any other fics in the series to understand this

It takes a month of being back in Hell’s Kitchen before he can bring himself past Fogwell’s doors. He’s wandered past the building several times, doing a few cursory sweeps of the building and its occupants every time, but he’s never been able to step inside. Not yet, anyway.

But now, alone in the city he used to love, he’s surrounded by ghosts and whispers of memories from what feels like another life. He slips on his gym clothes and heads to Fogwell’s before he’s even really aware of what he’s doing, mind and thoughts nothing but static.

He doesn’t even realize it’s the middle of the night until he’s standing outside of the locked doors, and he frowns as he tugs at the handle uselessly. His hand rests on the stubborn handle for a few more moments before he remembers the back entrance he used to watch his dad while he practiced, which could be shimmied open if you knew how to.

Even though it’s been years since he’s used the back door, his fingers remember the movements perfectly, and it isn’t long before he’s inside the gym for the first time since his father’s death.

The smell is the same, although the smell of sweat isn’t quite as strong with no one else inside. But the wooden benches, leather gloves, and heavy punching bags all seem to be the same as they had been all those years ago, and he stands still to breathe it all in.

It’s bizarre for it to be almost completely unchanged but for him to be nearly an entirely different person. Gone is the boy who would cheer on his father while he sparred and trained, instead replaced by a broken, angry shell of an orphan. All he is now is the pieces of what he used to be and what he could’ve been if things had only been a little bit different.

He takes careful steps toward one of the heavy bags, lifting a hand and tracing the seams of it almost reverently. Stick had hardly kept him away from such equipment, but there’s something different about the ones in this space than the ones he had been using under Stick’s supervision - it’s likely it’s only because of the sentiment and memories attached to them, but there’s no denying the spark of _ something _ that fills his chest for each moment his skin lingers on the rough material.

He presses a fist against the bag just hard enough for it to sway, and he closes his eyes as the sound of the chain creaks quietly in the otherwise silent space, letting himself soak in all the emotions that rise up within him in response.

It’s strange to stand in the same spot his dad once stood, the two of them so similar yet so different in a multitude of ways.

He moves over to where the supplies were always kept, and he smiles wryly as his fingers find the same wraps he used to play with as a kid in the same spot they always were. He stretches quickly then makes quick work of them, squeezing and relaxing his hands after he’s finished wrapping.

At first, he tries to block out the memory of his father teaching him the proper way to wrap your hands - he had always been adamant that violence was never the answer, but he could only do so much to redirect a child’s curiosity and enthusiasm, and he had always been a little too eager to show off to his son - but it only takes a few moments before he gives up.

Instead, he allows himself to reminisce, trying to remember the feeling of his father’s hands cradling his own, stretching out his fingers and tugging the wraps this way and that until they were securely in place.

He spent so long trying to work through his father’s death by training and honing his senses, and it had caused him to lose more and more memories of his father with each passing day. And as Jack Murdock’s only surviving family member, he’s determined to keep his memory alive for as long as he’s able.

He steels himself with this resolve as he heads back over to the training equipment, shaking out his arms and bouncing lightly from foot to foot.

Even as much as his dad wanted to keep him from fighting, there had always been a sense of calm and- _ rightness, _ almost, that came from hitting something so hard it couldn’t get back up.

Stick had capitalized on that, using it along with his grief and desperate need to belong somewhere, to train him into the most effective fighter he could be. And Stick may have been a selfish, delusional old man, but there was no denying he knew how to whip someone into shape, even someone as weak and terrified as he had been when they first met.

Thinking about Stick always fills him with an almost unbearable amount of negative emotions, and he breathes out harshly and punches one of the heavy bags to try and dispel some of them. It works, but only temporarily, and each blow he gives comes faster and faster as he lets his body give in to the rhythm of the devil singing beneath his skin.

He wonders if his dad ever felt the way he does now, with evil festering in his heart, clawing at anything it could get its hands on to be let out.

Did his dad ever feel the devil? Did he feel it desperate to control and consume him until he was nothing but a carcass of a man who had foolishly believed it might actually help?

But there’s not much point in dwelling on such matters when he doesn’t have the ability to ask them, so he gathers his focus and tries to keep it on the bag he’s pounding his fists against and the air around him, ready to bolt if anyone makes to enter the building.

The owner is likely the same one he had known as a kid and would have no problem with him using the space even after dark, but having that conversation and asking for permission feels like a deliberate choice to try and have a normal life, or at least something resembling one.

Moving back to the area he grew up in and attending school were simply stepping stones to get him where he wanted to be- he was under no false illusions that he’d be able to regain his life and live normally, not that he even wanted to.

He’d never get back the life he had, not since losing his sight and his dad and being taken in by Stick, and he still can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

At the very least, though, he knows this is his second chance- to make something of everything he learned from his dad and Stick. He’s not sure what he’ll do - what he _can _do, honestly - but for now, he’ll continue to work out his problems against a punching bag in a grimy old gym and hope when the time comes to make a difference, he’ll be able to do the right thing.

**Author's Note:**

> also reminder that ive got a discord server now ! you can join it [here](https://discord.gg/xupQR4T). it's where im going to be asking questions that ive normally been using twitter polls for, so if you want to have a say in those kinds of things, make sure to join!
> 
> and fun fact, matt's name is never actually used in this chapter bc at this point in his life, he very much feels like he's in a transition period (from having been matt murdock, son of the boxer jack murdock, then to blind orphan matty who trained under stick) and esp since he was physically in the same place he had been before stick, his whole identity and how he feels that he fits into the world is rlly up in the air at this point in time.


End file.
